Jobs To Be Done

# Jobs-to-be-Done Examples

## Example 1: Project Management Software (Good JTBD Analysis)

**Functional Jobs:**
- Coordinate tasks across a distributed team
- Track project progress against deadlines
- Identify blockers before they derail the project

**Social Jobs:**
- Be seen as an organized, reliable project leader
- Demonstrate transparency to stakeholders

**Emotional Jobs:**
- Feel confident that nothing is slipping through the cracks
- Avoid the stress of last-minute surprises

**Pains - Challenges:**
- Team members use different tools (Slack, email, spreadsheets), causing information silos
- No single source of truth for project status

**Pains - Costliness:**
- Manually updating status reports takes 3 hours per week
- Meetings to sync everyone take 5+ hours per week

**Pains - Common Mistakes:**
- Forgetting to follow up on tasks without clear ownership
- Miscommunicating priorities, leading to wasted effort

**Pains - Unresolved Problems:**
- Current tools don't surface blockers automatically
- Hard to visualize dependencies between tasks

**Gains - Expectations:**
- Automatically updates stakeholders on progress without manual reports
- Suggests task owners based on workload and expertise

**Gains - Savings:**
- Reduce status reporting time from 3 hours to 15 minutes
- Cut sync meetings in half

**Gains - Adoption Factors:**
- Easy to onboard (< 30 minutes to set up)
- Integrates with Slack and Google Calendar

**Gains - Life Improvement:**
- Leave work on time instead of staying late to track down updates
- Feel proactive instead of reactive

**Why this works:** Jobs are specific and solution-agnostic. Pains are validated by research. Gains are measurable and prioritizable.

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## Example 2: Bad JTBD Analysis (Feature Wishlist)

**Functional Jobs:**
- Use AI
- Have dashboards
- Get mobile app

**Social Jobs:**
- Be seen as innovative

**Emotional Jobs:**
- Feel modern

**Pains:**
- Current tools are old

**Gains:**
- Better UX
- Faster performance

**Why this fails:**
- "Use AI" is not a job—it's a solution (what are they trying to accomplish with AI?)
- "Have dashboards" is a feature, not a job
- Pains are vague ("current tools are old" = not actionable)
- Gains are generic ("better UX" = everyone says this)

**How to fix it:** Interview users. Ask "What are you trying to do?" not "What features do you want?" Dig into specific tasks, obstacles, and outcomes.


---
name: jobs-to-be-done
description: Uncover customer jobs, pains, and gains in a structured JTBD format. Use when clarifying unmet needs, repositioning a product, or improving discovery and messaging.
intent: >-
  Systematically explore what customers are trying to accomplish (functional, social, emotional jobs), the pains they experience, and the gains they seek. Use this framework to uncover unmet needs, validate product ideas, and ensure your solution addresses real motivations—not just surface-level feature requests.
type: component
---


## Purpose
Systematically explore what customers are trying to accomplish (functional, social, emotional jobs), the pains they experience, and the gains they seek. Use this framework to uncover unmet needs, validate product ideas, and ensure your solution addresses real motivations—not just surface-level feature requests.

This is not a survey—it's a structured lens for understanding *why* customers "hire" your product and what would make them "fire" it.

## Key Concepts

### The Jobs-to-be-Done Framework
Influenced by Clayton Christensen and the Value Proposition Canvas (Osterwalder), JTBD breaks customer needs into three categories:

**1. Customer Jobs:**
- **Functional jobs:** Tasks customers need to perform (e.g., "send an invoice")
- **Social jobs:** How customers want to be perceived (e.g., "look professional to clients")
- **Emotional jobs:** Emotional states customers seek or avoid (e.g., "feel confident in my work")

**2. Pains:**
- **Challenges:** Obstacles customers face
- **Costliness:** What's too exp